Smelser's theory of collective behavior holds that people join radical social movements because they experience strain. Among the most serious strains are anxieties that relate to one's social status and the roles that correspond to it. A social movement arises as a means of coping with these anxieties. Militia presence and activity on the Internet (especially Usenet) is a phenomenon that can be studied within the framework of Smelser's theory. Militia watchers contend that those who join the militias have experienced the kinds of strain to which Smelser refers. A content analysis of Internet traffic of U.S. militias provides a test of the general thesis outlined above. By analyzing Internet sites it is possible to examine whether militiamen have experienced strain, and whether the strain, together with other factors, influence an individual's decision to join the militia. This dissertation was the first sociological study of American militias on the Internet and the first in which militias from all regions of the country was studied. Information was gathered on 171 militiamen who joined 28 militias. A qualitative analysis of militia web sites and Usenet traffic (n=1,189 online documents) yielded answers to seven research questions. Most militiamen studied experienced some form of …

Changes in income and representation in managerial occupations is explored separately for women and men among the United States' eight largest race/ethnic minority groups for each decennial census of 1960, 1970, 1980 and 1990 to determine how much change has occurred between 1960 and 1990 in race and ethnic inequality, and in gender inequality within each race/ethnic group. Insights from gender theory are applied to minority group inequality and insights from minority group theory are applied to gender inequality with some degree of success. Economic change is uneven among the groups, with the largest specific change being the movement of women into managerial jobs. A clear pattern also emerged indicating that the higher the average representation of a minority group in managerial jobs, the greater the gap between women and men. The income of all persons with income, however, did not exhibit such a clear pattern across the different groups.

The problem of this study is to investigate how news policy in the Denton Record-Chronicle is defined and maintained and whether the newspaper staffers tend to conform to or conflict with the newspaper's news policy. The study suggests that the more experienced the staffer, the more likely he will conflict with the newspaper's news policy, and the less experienced the staffer, the more likely he will conform to the newspaper's news policy. Social control is in the hand of the newspaper organization. That is, the newspaper tends to control the mechanisms of social control. However, unless the newspaper recognizes the needs of the staffers' participation in its editorial decision, conflict may continue to be an important factor in the newsroom work-setting.

The study examines the socio-demographic characteristics of Traditional Medical Practitioners in Ghana. Their attitudes towards collaboration with biomedical practitioners, their associations, and regulation is also discussed. Data for the study was obtained from a Survey of Traditional Medical Practitioners in Ghana.

Several developing countries introduced family planning programs to reduce their population growth rates. The rapid spread of birth control programs in the developing countries was at times accompanied by measures which violated human rights. In response to the ethical violations and coercive policies on population control, toward the end of 1980s various international committees formulated a reproductive health approach to overcome the limited population control approach. Unlike other population control programs, the focus of reproductive health program is on “reproductive process,” where as the most immediate focus of family planning programs is on fertility. Although studies refer to reproductive health approach as an extension of fertility control approach, literature on reproductive health provides very few systematic approaches toward developing explanations of reproductive health. The current approaches on population control are influenced by the ideological shift towards a broad-based approach which involves fertility or family size as one of the components of reproductive health. The present study uses intermediate variables framework suggested by Davis and Blake to organize reproductive health explanations. The proposed framework suggests that the state of reproductive health is indicated by intercourse, conception, and gestation variables and assumes that reproductive health is a latent dimensional outcome indicated by …

When the heterogeneity of the city is considered, the sociological implications which stem from this heterogeneity become important to understanding the social structure of the city. One of these sociological implications is intrinsic in the patterns of transportation. This is an ecological study of the structure and changing structure of parts of the city. We will study the relationship between two variables; social area characteristics and patterns of transportation.

Before the discovery of oil Saudi Arabia's economic structure was limited, and the majority of the population was engaged in herding and agriculture. Social life was also very simple. The Saudi economy has made tremendous strides since commercial oil production began in 1938. A series of national development plans was formulated, and the government has devoted considerable attention to the improvement of education, the Bedouin lifestyle, and many other aspects of society. Chapter I of this thesis presents background information about Saudi Arabia, and Chapter II outlines the development of its oil resources. Chapters III, IV, and V describe Saudi Arabia's family life, its educational system, and its nomads. Chapter VI offers a summary and suggestions for enhancing future development in the kingdom.

The purpose of this research is to identify major factors that can be used to explain and predict the process of growth in union membership as represented by union victories in certification elections. The emphasis of this research is on organization and social-structural level factors. The logistic regression procedure reveals that organization level variables are most significant in explaining union victories in certification elections. Among the organization level variables, Unit Size, as defined by the NLRB, is the most significant variable in each year of the study and across all industrial classifications.

As the need for community care increases, complete and up-to-date information about organizational structure is crucial to making appropriate decisions about the expansion of adult day services. The absence of uniform national policies results in states and communities being relegated to balancing limited funds with the demand for adult day services, and in many areas, the lack of adult day care centers altogether. This study provides an overview of the types of state reimbursement, the availability of different funding sources, and the utilization of the sources in various states.

This study examined changes between 1950 and 1970 in women's aggregate occupational position in 168 Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas. Specifically, the research was designed to study three aspects of women's occupational position. First, women's distribution across occupational categories (absolute position) was examined. Absolute position was defined as the percent of working women in professional and managerial occupations. Second, women's occupational position compared to men (relative position) was examined. This involved women's share of the total jobs in each occupational category. Third, the statistical relationship between women's occupational position and their labor force participation rate was investigated using zero-order correlations.

Medication adherence is a formidable challenge for the elderly who may have several prescribed medications while dealing with limited incomes and declining health. The primary purpose of this study was to evaluate the Liberty 6000, an automated capsule and tablet dispenser that provides proper medication dosages and is intended to encourage and track medication adherence. Seven focus groups were assembled; these comprised 49 men and women ages 65 to 98 years of Black, Anglo, and Hispanic descent who met the following criteria: living independently or semi-independently, had suffered one or more impairments, and were taking at least three prescription medications. Each focus group session lasted 90 minutes and was tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim, resulting in about 2,600 lines of text. Each question was designed to be open-ended to avoid introducing any bias that might influence the response. The Health Belief Model conceptually guided the study that addressed perceptions of illness susceptibility and severity, barriers, benefits, and cues to action associated with medication adherence. Main benefits of taking medications included avoiding inherited illnesses (or tendencies for illnesses), and reducing illness symptoms. Barriers to taking medications included forgetting, dexterity problems, and high cost. Benefits of the proposed intervention included reminding, caregiver notification, …

This study examines the determinants of organizational commitment in a self-managing work team setting. The data used in the study are from a sample of 313 employees in an electronics manufacturing plant. Chapter one introduces the reader to the topic of self-managing work teams and explains the relevance of commitment to this organizational structure. Chapter two is a review of the literature which focuses on commitment, its determinants, and two theories used to explain the relationship between them. The remaining chapters describe the methodology used in the study, explain the findings and draw conclusions. Of all the factors analyzed, only perceived organizational support and autonomy were found to influence commitment in this sample. The relevance of these findings for business and academia is discussed.

American businesses have confronted a changing world economy marked by increasing competition , technological innovation, and instability. Many more women have entered the labor force. Many families' caregiving needs are now being met by family members who also are holding down jobs. This, in turn, has fueled the rising need among employees for workplace policies that enable them to meet the often competing demands of job and home. In 1993, Congress passed the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA of the Act) to provide a national policy that supports families in their efforts to strike a workable balance between the competing demands of the workplace and the home. The objective of this study is to examine the amount of FMLA lost time at one particular company in order to determine a demographic and job characteristic profile of employees who take time away from their jobs for reasons that are protected by the Act.

The concepts of marginality, social class, and goal-orientation were operationally defined. The relationships between these concepts were explored in order to discern their utility in describing the marginal conditions of Indian migrants to an urban area. Marginality was found to be reflected by the extent of identification of Indian migrants with the urban community. Marginal conditions were also more closely linked to social class than goal orientations of parents. Differences in the types of marginality experienced are related to the length of residence in the urban area.

Limited research has been conducted with regards to the applicability of topic extraction techniques in Sociology. Addressing the modern methodological opportunities, and responding to the skepticism with regards to the absence of theoretical foundations supporting the use of text analytics, I argue that Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA), complemented by other text analysis techniques and multivariate techniques, can constitute a unique hybrid method that can facilitate the sociological interpretations of web-based textual data. To illustrate the applicability of the hybrid technique, I developed two case studies. My first case study is associated with the Sociology of media. It focuses on the topic extraction and sentiment polarization among partisan texts posted on two major news sites. I find evidence of highly polarized opinions on comments posted on the Huffington Post and the Daily Caller. The highest polarizing topic was associated with a commentator’s reference on Hoodies in the context of the Trayvon Martin’s incident. My findings support contemporary research suggesting that media pundits frequently use tactics of outrage to provoke polarization of public opinion. My second case study contributes to the research domain of the Sociology of knowledge. The hybrid method revealed evidence of topical divides and topical “bridges” in the intellectual …

The purpose of this research is to measure the social shifts that take place in a home where artificial intelligent (AI) devices like Echo Dot and Google Home are fully integrated into their everyday life. Research is currently limited, being that the widespread use of these devices is roughly seven years old. Three main outcomes of this study were related to how often Alexa is being used in homes to solve everyday problems, the lack of overall privacy and security concerns users had, and the level of integration into the home as a member of the family. Some limitations and challenges are my ability to compare the households before and after installing these devices in the home; pinpointing when and where the device is used (i.e., room placement); collecting data on whether the device is used often or sparingly; and the depth of interactions these families actually have with the device on a whole. The broader implications behind the increased integration of AI devices is centered around health, labor, social inequality and ethics.

This study examines the relationship between oil development and social change in Iran. The research focused on the years since 1953 examining the economic structure through the five development plans which were the major vehicles of social transformation. Within this framework the importance of oil, industrialization, land reform,, the labor force, education and health are discussed. Demographic and stratification changes are covered such as changingpopulation patterns, migration, minorities, social classes, and the distribution of wealth. Cultural and social values are then treated with emphasis on the Shah and arms, social control and social behavior. The paper concludes: oil revenues were frequently squandered without real socio-economic benefit to the masses. Economic's mismanagement and rigid social control increases pressures in society causing the 1978 revolution.

In this study, I examine how an online cryptocurrency community discusses the issue of climate change. In particular, I examine distinctive themes present within discussions that occur on the r/CryptoCurrency forum hosted by reddit.com. Existing research has demonstrated that there are significant carbon emissions linked to cryptocurrency. However, cryptocurrency primarily exists as a peer-to-peer system, meaning that the individual perceptions of cryptocurrency adopters may provide insight into how to address the emissions problem. Using latent Dirichlet allocation and publicly available textual data from Reddit, I find that Reddit's cryptocurrency community engages in robust discussions pertaining to the energy needed to power cryptocurrency systems, most of which is generated from fossil fuels. Therefore, the discussions identified in this study suggest that the social aspect of cryptocurrency may be important when examining the links between cryptocurrency and climate change since they help identify what subjects related to climate change are important for this community.

Data gathered from Tyler, Texas, the University of North Texas, and the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) were used to compare children from commercial, home, church, and university based day care with children not attending day care. The research group, comprised of children attending day care (N=142), were located using non-probability sampling; those not in day care (the control group) came from the NSFH (N=1775). Data from the research group were weighted to match the control group. The independent and control variables included the child's age, length of time in day care, intellectual functioning; the parent's marital status and social class; the day care's staff to child ratio and the staff's training. All data, except that pertaining to the facility itself, were gathered from the children's parents using a self-report questionnaire. The remaining data were gathered through personal interview by the researcher. The dependent variable was an index of emotional and behavioral problems reported for the child. Overall, children who attended day care had only slightly more problems reported than those who did had not attended day care. When each center was examined separately, the children in home centers had the greatest number of problems, followed by the …

One of the major issues concerning old age security is the adequacy of support systems for the aged population. Population aging and economic development in the People's Republic of China have raised the question about the ability of the family to take care of the elderly. Using the latest data collected by the Research Center on Aging in China of a national representative sample of the aged population, this study develops a model to examine the effectiveness of family support for the elderly during the current socio-economic transition of the society. The model also examines the adequacy and effectiveness of state welfare systems on the aged population and the effect of select socio-demographic factors on the well-being of the elderly in China. The investigation into the social, economic, and health aspects of the life of the elderly provides the background knowledge for understanding the support systems for the elderly in China. The multivariate analyses of the effects of the elderly support systems within the framework of shared functions of the primary groups, and the bureaucracy in achieving social goals, identify the important effects of the economic conditions of the family and the state income maintenance programs on the sense of …

Saudi Arabia is affected by the dominant culture of the Arabic Islamic nations, and Islam exerts a strong influence on all. aspects of Saudi society, including women's participation in the kingdom's labor force. Chapter I of this thesis deals with Arabian women in general, and Chapter II surveys the past and present roles of Saudi women. Chapter III enumerates obstacles hindering women's full participation in the Saudi labor force; Chapter IV presents information on the people of Saudi Arabia, concentrating upon its large population of foreign workers; and Chapter V surveys the women currently employed in the kingdom's public, private, and agricultural sectors. Chapter VI suggests means for increasing the employment of women, in accordance with Islamic tenets and mores.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the writings of early American sociologists for attitudes and theoretical ideas concerning aging which individually and collectively have formed the basis for current social theory in gerontology.

This is a descriptive study of the statistical association between the amounts of financial—emotional supports available and their impact on the degree of difficulty in the performance of the parental roles of a nonrandom sample of eighty-six Mexican-American female single parents from McAllen, Texas. The sample was divided into four socioeconomic status categories. A total of twenty-nine variables were correlated: twenty independent, financial-emotional and nine dependent parental performance variables. The twenty variables were defined in terms of socioeconomic resources: child-care availability and satisfaction, nature of personal/children problems, and frequency of interaction with significant others defined emotional supports. Parental role performances were defined in terms of having children with medical, learning or emotional problems, and the degree of difficulty in caring for sick children, spending time with them, yelling and screaming, use of corporal punishment and feeling overwhelmed by parental demands. Analyses indicated that these families functioned in a stable and viable manner, with little evidence of disintegration or "pathology." The parents had extensive social networks comprised of kin# coworkers, and friends, and they interacted with these support people on a regular basis, usually several times per week, but at the same time the parents rarely interacted with the ex-husbands or …

This paper defines the difference between "cosmopolitans" and "locals" in Denton, Texas, as they relate to the aged black and white communities.